A displaced Californian composer writes about music made for the long while & the world around that music. ~
The avant-garde is flexibility of mind. — John Cage ~
...composition is only a very small thing, taken as a part of music as a whole, and it really shouldn't be separated from music making in general. — Douglas Leedy ~
My God, what has sound got to do with music! — Charles Ives

Monday, February 19, 2007

Ethnographic Notes from an Old Country

From the Fasnet (Allemanisch/Schwäbisch Carnival) parade this afternoon in Schramberg.

2 comments:

I can only describe what I saw that day. In the Carnival traditions of this region, with origins that are said to be pre-christian, each village has a club with its own mask type. The figures -- witches, wood sprites, woodsmen, bears, wolves, cats, dogs -- are all forest types, and presumably more associated with their powers to fight winter than to delay Lent. When a club of "Narren" ("fools" or "crazies"), approaches in a parade, often accompanied by a wind band, playing very simple music, and the largest group of masked figures "leap" in a characteristic way, sometimes giving sweets or pretzels or mandarins to watchers, in return for the watchers correctly chanting the name of the club. At the tail end of the group, there are usually a few more dexterous leapers, who wrestle with one another, do some elaborate flips, and sometimes take people prisoner from the crowd. (The prison is a wagon with a presumably full beer keg).